Hey, Kids! Free Comics! Today Only!

It is a crappy fall day here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office in Boston, the kind of day where you just want to stay close to home and light the first fire of autumn… and once the neighbors across the street with their stupid, stupid yap dog that barks every damn night are well and truly burnt out and homeless, you just want to hang out on the couch with some cold whiskey and a comic book, bemoaning your decision to be too broke to attend the New York Comic-Con.

And if you’re stuck in the same situation, you’re in luck… kinda. Because thanks to the New York Comic-Con, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that today is Spider-Man day in the city, and to mark the occasion, Marvel has made the first issue of Ultimate Spider-Man’s Infinite Comic available for free via ComiXology, today only.

I Hate Being Right All The Time

The New York Comic-Con is under full swing, and news is trickling out fast and furious. We reported yesterday about the announcement that Marvel will be releasing The Superior Spider-Man after The Amazing Spider-Man closes up show with issue 700, and how writer Dan Slott is playing things close to the vest as to what will happen to Peter Parker in Amazing Spider-Man #700, who will be under the mask in Superior Spider-Man, and what makes this version of Spider-Man darker than Peter Parker currently is. And in the course of our reporting, I spun out a couple of theories of what is going to happen and who might be behind the mask and why.

Well, that was Thursday’s big story. Yesterday afternoon, at the NYCC Marvel Now panel, Marvel Editor in Chief Axel Alonso revealed the cover to The Superior Spider-Man #2.

Threat Or Menace: Slott on The Superior Spider-Man

So yeah – turns out they were talking about Spider-Man.

Yesterday was the retailer’s breakfast at New York Comic Con where The Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott announced what the hell “Superior” stood for, and apparently he then turned right around and told USA Today that, following the sooper seekrit events of the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man #700 – which will mark the end of that title, at least until someone at Marvel realizes there’s money to be made in releasing a book with the words “Spider-Man” and “800” on the cover – he will be writing a book titled The Superior Spider-Man about… some guy in a Spider-Man suit.

A guy who might, or might not, be Peter Parker.

“I’ve always been the omniscient hand that’s been protecting Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and not letting anything too bad happen to him,” [Slott said]. “And now I’ve become this cruel god. There’s something exciting about that, about going, ‘Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha, here is what’s going to happen to you, Spider-Man!’ And it’s drastic and it’s big and it’s exciting and it’s never been done before.”

So here’s what we know: Slott says that in The Amazing Spider-Man #700, Doctor Octopus has only one day to live, and he knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and he is going to do something unfriendly to Pete. And whatever that thing is, it is going to lead to a somewhat darker Spider-Man.

So what do you have in mind, Dan?

Baboons, Brontosaurs and Boobs: Frank Cho’s Savage Wolverine Announced By Marvel

Apparently Marvel realized that their one-word teaser, “Savage,” was about as inscrutable and murky as Crystal Pepsi, so they figured they might as well make things official.

Frank Cho will be writing and drawing the Marvel Now new series Savage Wolverine. Not to be confused with The Savage Hawkman from DC Comics; that book was about an angry guy with metal claws who liked liquor, but he could also fly, making it totally different.

Cho, best known in the superhero comic book world for his artwork on New Avengers and Mighty Avengers, and his writing / drawing of Shanna The She-Devil (not counting the giant vagina he drew on the cover of Avengers Vs. X-Men #0), is widely-known as a cheesecake guy, and therefore is totally the most obvious choice to write and draw a short, hairy, foulmouthed drunkard (Look, Ma! I’m in a comic!).

What made you wanna take the gig, Frank?

The Word After “Mother”: Creative Team Behind Marvel Now “Superior” Project Announced

Marvel has released a new one-word Marvel Now teaser… kinda. And, well, so much for that Miracleman theory.

There’s still no specific word as to what Marvel’s “Superior” tease from a couple weeks back means, but thanks to Marvel releasing a new version of the image to USA Today, we at least have a creative team attached… which you can see after the jump.

Savage Amateurs: More Marvel Now One-Word Teasers

Oh Marvel, you and your one-word teasers for Marvel Now relaunches that you struggle more and more to make enigmatic and mysterious. A few weeks ago, they dropped a few that were truly baffling at the time – Superior? What the fuck does Superior mean? Are we dick-measuring now, Marvel? – and it had reached the point where I had become convinced that, if they wanted to keep us guessing, Marvel would be forced to resort to just making words up. Something like: “Miller. Jansen. Dinkenclammer,” or: “Adams. Lee. Sclunt.” *

But it turns out I was a bit off on that prediction, because Marvel’s come out with a couple new teasers that are a bit more decipherable. Such as this one from yesterday:

Amazing Spider-Man #700 To Have Steve Ditko Variant Cover

Before you get too excited by the title, no; Steve Ditko has not suddenly pried open the door to his New York studio, gone to embrace Stan Lee in his hospital bed, started using Atlas Shrugged as a cutting board and taking commissions from all comers.

No, instead Marvel has found and restored an unused version of the original cover from Amazing Fantasy #15 *, produced by Ditko presumably before that issue was released in 1962, and announced that they will be using it as a variant cover for Amazing Spider-Man #700.

We’ve known for a while that there was gonna be a Ditko variant cover to the book, but a full-sized image hasn’t been available until now, when Newsarama got a hold of it. So feast your eyes…

Bony: Sony Closes PSP Digital Comics Store, Schedules Server Shutdown

It was only a matter of time before some digital comics retailer not only closed up shop, but shut down their servers so that the money you spent to “buy” comics went straight down the Long Blue Hole… and that time is now.

Sony has announced that their Comic Store for PSP, available through the Playstation Store, will be closing up shop on October 30th, and that any comics you bought that are still on their servers will become unavailable sometime “mid January 2013.”

Not to be dicks, but we told you so.

Chinese Democracy: Grant Morrison Teases Multiversity Miniseries

We here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives didn’t attend MorrisonCon in Las Vegas this weekend, partly because we’re still paying off our trip to the San Diego Comic-Con, and partly because no trip to a town featuring easy access to gambling and free liquor is likely to end well for us. However, that meant we missed out on some breaking news that is trickling from the convention, such as the fact that Morrison’s Multiversity series, that was initially announced for a 2009 release date, just after Infinite Crisis, is now scheduled for sometime late next year. To which I can only say: yeah, I’ll believe it when I fucking see it.

The miniseries will reportedly be eight issues, with six one-shots each focusing on a different parallel universe, with a two-part conclusion crossing over the various Earths’ heroes. And each issue looks to be packed with story, containing a 38-page primary story and an eight-page backup. And considering this thing will have been in the works for nearly half a decade by the time it hits comic stores, that seems like a fair per-book length; anything shorter might imply that Morrison had spent all this time fucking around, which seems unlikely… or even less likely, that someone at DC had actually edited the damn things.

Final Rest: Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore Settle Walking Dead Lawsuit

There is nothing more heartwarming in this world than seeing a childhood friendship grow into adulthood, turn into a productive working relationship, lead to an amicable parting of the ways as one friend pursues his dreams of producing professional comics work for page rates while the other turns their mutual prior work into a license to print money, then meet again in a Federal courtroom with mutual exclamations of affection like “[You are] a proud liar and fraudster,” and “[Your] lawsuit is ridiculous,” all before concluding in that most beautiful of Hollywood of endings: with one friend writing a check so the other can feel free to fuck off and die.

Or, in other words: Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore have settled their lawsuit over profits from and ownership over The Walking Dead.